Definition of Christian Terms

** PENTECOSTAL **

PENTECOSTAL comes from the word Pentecost (Greek: πεντηκοστή, Strong's Concordance #G4005), which is the English word for one of God's annual Holy Days outlined in the Bible in Leviticus 23. The word means "fiftieth," as the proper day for the observance is determined by counting fifty days from a Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

In Acts 2 in the New Testament, the disciples of Jesus were gathered together on this annual Holy Day in Jerusalem when they first received the empowerment of the Holy Spirit after Jesus' resurrection. The most noticeable feature of this occasion was that each of the disciples "spoke with other tongues," and those in the audience, who were from many other nations, were surprised to hear them speak in their own native languages:

"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

"And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.  And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

"Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another,  'Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?  And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?  Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.'  So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another,  'Whatever could this mean?' " (Acts 2:1-12, NKJV)

Pentecostals emphasize the teaching of the "full gospel" or "foursquare gospel". The four squares of the Pentecostal foursquare gospel are:

• Jesus saves according to John 3:16

• Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4

• Jesus heals bodily according to James 5:15

• Jesus is coming again to receive those who are saved according to 1Thessalonians 4:16–17

Pentecostal and Charismatic are sometimes used interchangeably to designate the same groups, teachers, and phenomena. However, most students of religious history tend to use the term Pentecostal to refer to the more old fashioned, unsophisticated groups that developed out of a Holy Spirit movement that began around 1900 AD. And they use the term Charismatic to refer to a more contemporary, sophisticated branch of this general belief system that has developed since the 1950s.

Roughly speaking, in the year 2000 around 115 million people worldwide were considered followers of Pentecostalism or Pentecostals. Some of the major Pentecostal denominations include The Assemblies of God, Church of God in Christ, The Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, International Pentecostal Holiness Church, Pentecostal Charismatic Churches of North America and United Pentecostal Church International.